Shai Agassi
Encyclopedia
Shai Agassi is an Israel
i entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Better Place, which has developed a model and infrastructure for employing electric cars as an alternative to fossil fuel
technology. Agassi was President of the Products and Technology Group (PTG) at SAP AG
. In 2003, at the age of 36, Agassi was named one of the top 20 'Global Influentials for 2003' by CNN
-Time magazine. In 2009, Agassi was included in TIME magazine's 100 most influential people list.
In 2010, Foreign Policy
magazine included Agassi on its annual list of the 100 most influential global thinkers.
After graduating Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
, Agassi set out as a software entrepreneur. He founded TopTier Software (originally called Quicksoft Development) in Israel
in 1992 and later moved the company's headquarters to California
. Agassi served the company in various capacities including chairman, chief technology officer, and then CEO. He was directly involved in all critical phases of the company's development, including its strategic plan, technical direction and financing, management of two acquisitions, and negotiation of OEM agreements with companies such as SAP, Baan, and Microsoft
. TopTier was a leading enterprise portal vendor when SAP acquired the company in April 2001 at a price of $400 million USD.
In addition to TopTier Software, Agassi co-founded several other companies with his father, Reuven Agassi, including Quicksoft Ltd., a leading multimedia
software localization and distribution company in the Israeli market; TopManage, a developer of small business software that was also acquired by SAP in April 2002 (which became SAP Business One, the small business offering by SAP); and Quicksoft Media, a multimedia production company that ceased operations in 1995.
vacated that space in 2007. However, Mr. Kagermann's contract as CEO was extended until 2009 by the supervisory board. This led Agassi to resign.
At SAP he was responsible for SAP's overall technology strategy and execution. In this leadership position, he oversaw the development of the integration and application platform SAP NetWeaver
, SAP xApps
packaged composite applications, SAP SRM, and SAP Business One
. Before his appointment to the SAP Executive Board, Agassi was CEO of SAP Portals and later of the combined company SAP Markets and SAP Portals, which previously operated as a fully owned subsidiary of SAP AG. He was appointed to the SAP Executive Board in 2002. Together with the head of the Application Platform & Architecture (AP&A) group, Peter Zencke, Agassi co-led the Suite Architecture Team, which aligns the software architecture across all SAP solutions.
i government announced its support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, embracing a joint venture between Better Place, Renault
and its partner, Nissan Motor Company. Renault and Better Place are working on development of exchangeable batteries.
Agassi initially raised $200MM for this project, one of the largest and fastest seed rounds in history. Investors include VantagePoint Venture Partners
, Israel Corporation
, Israel Cleantech Ventures
, Morgan Stanley
, and private investors led by Michael Granoff of Maniv Energy Capital. In 2009 he raised an additional $135 million for Better Place Denmark, including an investment from DONG Energy the leading utility in Denmark. Following the announcement in Israel, Better Place had launched its network in Denmark, Australia and in two US locations - Hawaii and Northern California. The company has said it is in talks with more than 25 countries around the world. In early 2010, Better Place raised its Series-B round at an amount of $350MM led by new investors from HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Lazard, as well as all previous investors. In November of 2011, the company raised its third equity financing round of $200 million from a group of investors including GE, UBS bank and others. The last round's valuation of $2.25B is one of the highest valuations for pre-revenue companies in history.
In April 2008, Deutsche Bank analysts reportedly concluded that the company's approach could be a "paradigm shift
" that causes "massive disruption
" to the auto industry, and which has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine altogether."
Charlie Rose
interviewed Agassi on December 1, 2010 for his show where he discussed the electric car.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Better Place, which has developed a model and infrastructure for employing electric cars as an alternative to fossil fuel
Fossil fuel
Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
technology. Agassi was President of the Products and Technology Group (PTG) at SAP AG
SAP AG
SAP AG is a German software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. Headquartered in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, with regional offices around the world, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software...
. In 2003, at the age of 36, Agassi was named one of the top 20 'Global Influentials for 2003' by CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
-Time magazine. In 2009, Agassi was included in TIME magazine's 100 most influential people list.
In 2010, Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy is a bimonthly American magazine founded in 1970 by Samuel P. Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel.Originally, the magazine was a quarterly...
magazine included Agassi on its annual list of the 100 most influential global thinkers.
Business entrepreneurship
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a research-intensive institute of technology in Haifa, Israel. Originally called the Technikum, it was founded in 1912...
, Agassi set out as a software entrepreneur. He founded TopTier Software (originally called Quicksoft Development) in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1992 and later moved the company's headquarters to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Agassi served the company in various capacities including chairman, chief technology officer, and then CEO. He was directly involved in all critical phases of the company's development, including its strategic plan, technical direction and financing, management of two acquisitions, and negotiation of OEM agreements with companies such as SAP, Baan, and Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. TopTier was a leading enterprise portal vendor when SAP acquired the company in April 2001 at a price of $400 million USD.
In addition to TopTier Software, Agassi co-founded several other companies with his father, Reuven Agassi, including Quicksoft Ltd., a leading multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
software localization and distribution company in the Israeli market; TopManage, a developer of small business software that was also acquired by SAP in April 2002 (which became SAP Business One, the small business offering by SAP); and Quicksoft Media, a multimedia production company that ceased operations in 1995.
SAP executive
He was next in line for the position of CEO of SAP after Henning KagermannHenning Kagermann
Henning Kagermann was chairman of the Executive Board and Chief Executive Officer of SAP AG. Together with Hasso Plattner, co-founder of SAP, he was co-chairman of the SAP Executive Board and CEO From 1998 to 2003...
vacated that space in 2007. However, Mr. Kagermann's contract as CEO was extended until 2009 by the supervisory board. This led Agassi to resign.
At SAP he was responsible for SAP's overall technology strategy and execution. In this leadership position, he oversaw the development of the integration and application platform SAP NetWeaver
NetWeaver
SAP NetWeaver is SAP's integrated technology computing platform and is the technical foundation for many SAP applications since the SAP Business Suite. SAP NetWeaver is marketed as a service-oriented application and integration platform...
, SAP xApps
XApps
xApp , is a collective term applied to software products built following the SAP xApps convention and running on a SAP NetWeaver application server. Including a range of software products from SAP AG, solutions by SAP partners and customer made composite applications...
packaged composite applications, SAP SRM, and SAP Business One
SAP Business One
SAP Business One is an integrated enterprise resource planning solution for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as divisions and subsidiaries of larger companies. Produced by SAP, the solution is intended to assist companies by providing support for sales, customer relationships, inventory,...
. Before his appointment to the SAP Executive Board, Agassi was CEO of SAP Portals and later of the combined company SAP Markets and SAP Portals, which previously operated as a fully owned subsidiary of SAP AG. He was appointed to the SAP Executive Board in 2002. Together with the head of the Application Platform & Architecture (AP&A) group, Peter Zencke, Agassi co-led the Suite Architecture Team, which aligns the software architecture across all SAP solutions.
Better Place
In January 2008, the IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i government announced its support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, embracing a joint venture between Better Place, Renault
Renault
Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...
and its partner, Nissan Motor Company. Renault and Better Place are working on development of exchangeable batteries.
Agassi initially raised $200MM for this project, one of the largest and fastest seed rounds in history. Investors include VantagePoint Venture Partners
VantagePoint Venture Partners
VantagePoint Capital Partners is a firm with investments in the cleantech, information technology and healthcare sectors.Founded in 1996, by Alan E. Salzman and Jim Marver, the firm has raised over $4 billion with more than $1 billion dedicated specifically to CleanTech...
, Israel Corporation
Israel Corporation
Israel Corporation is Israel’s largest holding company. Fifty of its manufacturing activities and 70% of its consolidated revenues derive from global operations. Its core holdings are fertilizers and specialty chemicals, energy, shipping and transportation. Israel Corp is a constituent of the...
, Israel Cleantech Ventures
Israel Cleantech Ventures
Israel Cleantech Ventures is an Israeli specialized venture capital firm founded in 2006 by Glen Schwaber, Jack Levy, and Meir Ukeles. It was the first Israel focused clean technology venture capital fund intent on providing growth capital to Israel's energy, water and environmental technology...
, Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City serving a diversified group of corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley also operates in 36 countries around the world, with over 600 offices and a workforce of over 60,000....
, and private investors led by Michael Granoff of Maniv Energy Capital. In 2009 he raised an additional $135 million for Better Place Denmark, including an investment from DONG Energy the leading utility in Denmark. Following the announcement in Israel, Better Place had launched its network in Denmark, Australia and in two US locations - Hawaii and Northern California. The company has said it is in talks with more than 25 countries around the world. In early 2010, Better Place raised its Series-B round at an amount of $350MM led by new investors from HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Lazard, as well as all previous investors. In November of 2011, the company raised its third equity financing round of $200 million from a group of investors including GE, UBS bank and others. The last round's valuation of $2.25B is one of the highest valuations for pre-revenue companies in history.
In April 2008, Deutsche Bank analysts reportedly concluded that the company's approach could be a "paradigm shift
Paradigm shift
A Paradigm shift is, according to Thomas Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science...
" that causes "massive disruption
Disruption
Disruption is the interruption of normal work or practice.*In Scotland, the Disruption of 1843 refers to the divergence from the Church of Scotland of the Free Church of Scotland...
" to the auto industry, and which has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine altogether."
Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose
Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
interviewed Agassi on December 1, 2010 for his show where he discussed the electric car.
See also
- Economy of IsraelEconomy of IsraelThe economy of Israel is a technologically advanced market economy, including a rapidly-developing high-tech and service sectors. As of 2010, Israel has the 24th largest economy in the world, and ranks 15th among 169 world nations on the UN's Human Development Index, which places it in the category...
- Israeli inventions and discoveriesIsraeli inventions and discoveriesIsraeli inventions and discoveries have received worldwide attention since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Several of the discoveries included in this list were made by Israelis while staying at overseas research institutes.- Chemistry :...
- Science and technology in IsraelScience and technology in IsraelScience and technology in Israel is one of the country's most developed sectors. The percentage of Israelis engaged in scientific and technological inquiry, and the amount spent on research and development in relation to gross domestic product , is amongst the highest in the world...
- Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle
External links
- The Long Tailpipe, Shai Agassi writes about enterprise software and alternative energy
- New York Times Magazine profile on Agassi and Better Place
- Shai Agassi on The Hour with George StroumboulopoulosGeorge StroumboulopoulosGeorge Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos is a Canadian television and radio personality, best known as the host of CBC Television's George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight and being a VJ for Canadian music television channel MuchMusic...
- A bold plan for mass adoption of electric cars Shai Agassi speaks at TED 2009